March 29, 2024

Dan Gainor: Summertime and the media are embarrassing — from hating America to loving Antifa

August is a time when Washington shuts down for summer recess. The left and the media should have taken the hint. Instead, they stayed and made fools of themselves.

In the space of one week, the press downplayed a Democrat governor saying America “was never that great” and watched as the governor’s brother/CNN anchor defended Antifa. Another CNN commentator bashed America and mocked a conservative while she told of the discrimination her disabled son faced. And former CIA director John Brennan, now an NBC national security analyst, recanted his claim that President Donald Trump committed treason and spent the week whining about losing his security clearance.

Let’s take the Cuomo family, first. (Or just take the Cuomo family, please.) Brothers Andrew and Chris humiliated themselves in separate incidents this past week — showing their mutual contempt for America and the Constitution and highlighting everything that is wrong with journalism all at the same time.

Andrew the-liberal-New-York governor Cuomo, shocked no one when he admitted something conservatives knew all along — that the left hates America. “We are not going to make America great again,” he said during a speech. “It was never that great.”

Of course, the broadcast networks downplayed it, stalling before they covered the remark and giving the disastrous comment barely more than one minute total across ABC, CBS and NBC. Imagine a top Republican saying something like that and getting almost no coverage. Cuomo later backtracked and called his attack on the U.S. “inartful” which is another way of saying: “I got caught, but stand by what I said.”

The younger Cuomo, apparently, didn’t like being upstaged. Chris the-liberal-CNN-anchor Cuomo, shockingly defended Antifa violence saying, “fighting hate is right.” This is the same attitude as the left’s view that it’s OK to punch a Nazi – except Antifa, and possibly some CNN anchors, view everyone they disagree with as Nazis. Cuomo then argued, “all punches are not equal morally.”

Look for Omarosa to do her best impression of her “Apprentice” self and fade as soon as the media find a new or actually credible anti-Trump critic to focus on.

Cuomo’s bizarre defense came when The Washington Post and lefty Vox both criticized Antifa for attacking the press. The Post headlined: “Antifa protesters couldn’t find any fascists at Unite the Right — and harassed the press instead.” And Vox hit back just as hard: “Antifa clashes with police and journalists in Charlottesville and DC.” NBC reporter Cal Perry was assaulted by one Antifa thug who screamed: “Fu** you, snitch ass news b*tch. Fu** you.”

Alas, it wasn’t just the Cuomos showcasing flaws in journalism this week.

CNN commentator Angela Rye actually agreed with the idiotic Cuomo comment (Andrew, not Chris), and attacked conservative Gina Loudon for mentioning her disabled son. Rolling her eyes, Rye exclaimed, “America has never been great, and it’s not great because people like you come on and lie for the president of the United States and then tout, bring out your son as an example. Like, you gotta be completely ashamed of yourself.”

Then NBC’s in-house former CIA director Brennan backed off his own claims that the Trump presser with Russian President Vladimir Putin was “nothing short of treason,” reported The Hill. Brennan, who is trying to defend why he should have kept his security clearance, had to pretend to be rational and now claims, “I didn’t mean that he committed treason. But it was a term that I used, nothing short of treasonous,” he said. Brennan even rationalized his original comment, saying, “sometimes my Irish comes out and in my tweets.”

Of course, Brennan’s new employer NBC seemed especially miffed that he lost his security clearance. “Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt took a dig at the White House, saying, “It looks a lot like payback.”

When press darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez banned the press from a public event, reporters found out that the true face of socialism doesn’t just wear a popular lipstick color.

There was tons more. From hateful “comedian” Michelle Wolf losing her Netflix show to MSNBC anchor/liar Brian Williams asking whether the president “really physically [does] not like dogs.”

That would be enough for an awful media week, but never doubt the ability of New York Times economist Paul Krugman to make a bad situation worse. He ranted in his latest column that Trump was ready to become a dictator. “Make no mistake: if Republicans hold both houses of Congress this November, Trump will go full authoritarian, abusing institutions like the I.R.S., trying to jail opponents and journalists on, er, trumped-up charges, and more — and he’ll do it with full support from his party.”

Omarosa’s Unhinged: The media should have known that Omarosa Manigault Newman never wins. In fact, they could have asked Trump about it. He had enough experience firing the “Apprentice” veteran before. Just like her previous TV gigs, Omarosa showed up, created a stir, accused someone of calling her the “N” word and quickly faded from view.

That didn’t stop the press, who ate up Omarosa’s new allegations like she wasn’t someone they had mocked for years. This time, the broadcast networks gave her 93 minutes of coverage — nearly an hour of that on NBC alone.

ABC quoted Omarosa’s bizarre claim about Trump starting a “race war.” And, of course, she called him a “racist.” ABC correspondent Tara Palmeri went off on the president: “According to The Washington Post, which has an advance copy of her book titled ‘Unhinged,’ Manigault Newman claims Trump is a, quote, ‘racist, bigot, and misogynist.’”

MSNBC referred to the Trump-Omarosa dust-up as “an old-fashioned duel that hearkens back to the days of Hamilton and Burr.” One Times reporter compared it to “watching Darth Vader kill the Emperor in the third Star Wars movie.”

Look for Omarosa to do her best impression of her “Apprentice” self and fade as soon as the media find a new or actually credible anti-Trump critic to focus on.

Socialists Don’t Like The Press?: The media have a default setting that everyone on the right hates the press. In the minds of reporters, that means the left must love the press. Too bad it seldom works out that way.

We’ve had candidate Barack Obama throw reporters off the campaign plane for the crime of having their outlets support his opponent. One-time press icon Helen Thomas compared President Obama to President Richard Nixon for how he dealt with the press. Hillary Clinton roped off the press like cattle during her campaign. And now press darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez banned the press from a public event.

How quickly garden variety socialists go from rock stars to press opponents. Only two weeks ago, The Hollywood Reporter called Ocasio-Cortez a “rock-star Democratic congressional candidate.” When The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro challenged her to a debate, many in the media stood by their second-favorite socialist (no one outshines Sen. Bernie Sanders.) Elle criticized “Ben Shapiro’s Bad-Faith Debate Offer” and Broadly led its story with “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t suffer fools.”

Now, they all find that the true face of socialism doesn’t just wear a popular lipstick color.

The result was Ocasio-Cortez getting skewered by journalists across the political spectrum. Washington Post White House reporter Seung Min Kim ripped into the likely future congresswoman. “You cannot ban members of the press from events that are otherwise open to the public. That is not how it works. Period.” Ocasio-Cortez has called it a “non-story.” That’s less of a claim and more of a request.

She’ll likely get her wish as the press remembers they support all of her policies.

Dan Gainor is the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

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